Warm weather will return

Monday

Oct 9, 2017 at 3:36 PMOct 9, 2017 at 3:36 PM

Roger Bluhm/Managing Editor

The first cold spell of the fall will be over by Wednesday, according to the National Weather Service’s Dodge City office.

"It will be cold (Monday) night and cool on Tuesday," said meteorologist Kelly Sugden in a Monday afternoon interview. "However, by Wednesday it will be near normal temperatures and Thursday it will be in the lower 80s."

Sudden remarked normal temperatures for this of year is 72 degrees.

"After next weekend, highs will be in the 60s, but the extended forecast looks like normal temperatures and little chance of rain," Sugden said. "There will be about a 30 percent chance of rain on Saturday morning, but our model shows most of the rain being northeast of us.

"The jet stream will remain north of us, so the storms and rain will remain northeast of us on Saturday."

As the calendar moves on, southwest Kansas will start to dry out — again.

"For the year, we are above average for rainfall," Sugden said. "But, recently we were very dry but the recent rains got us back to normal conditions.

"But, late fall and winter tend to be our driest times and there’s nothing in the weather pattern that suggests that will change."

Which suggests a fall and winter of normal temperatures, normal precipitations and possibly dry conditions again next spring.

"January tends to be the driest time around here," Sugden said. "If we follow the recent pattern, we’ll be dry again by late January.

"So, despite the above-normal rainfall, we may still be deadly dry by next spring."